El Remanso Blog

El Remanso's staff, together with their families participated in the annual Earth Day celebration yesterday, April 22nd, in the local community town of Puerto Jiménez. The events started at 9 o'clock with a "Earth Day parade" of local conservation organizations and students from the local schools.

Bats usually use existing cavities such as caves or tree-holes as roosting sites. On very rare cases the do their own homes, and this is one of those peculiar cases where bats built a shelter for the group, that includes adult males, moms and babies. Bats chew the center vain of a palm-leaf hence the leaf drops forming a tent. In the forest reserve at El Remanso on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica you can see over 50 species of bats, among them several that use leafs as shelter. Have you ever seen them in nature? Tell us and share your pics!

Chestnut-mandibled toucans (Ramphastos ambiguus swainsonii)) are one of the 2 members of the Toucan family (Ramphastidae) that you can find in the Osa Peninsula. It is frequent to spot toucans at El Remanso, specially from the restaurant deck in the early mornings as well as anywhere in the tropical garden of the lodge. Since yesterday we have our "yearly visitors" back and nesting in a tree cavity next to the main driveway of the lodge. This is the third year in a row where we have been able to observe a couple of toucans using the exact same hole to create their nest.

Night tours at El Remanso are lead by naturalist guide Rinaldo. The tour starts usually at 5.30, once the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean down here in the Osa Peninsula. Commonly seen wildlife during this tour includes spiders, frogs, toats, snakes, opposums and sometimes even sleeping mammals. The tour usually starts with some time next to the El Remanso pool or our new "frog pond" where different types of frogs and toats can be found. The most looked for is certainly the red-eye tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas), the most "photogenic of the frogs in the pond"!